1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to power plants, and more particularly, to a power plant suitable for application to a nuclear power plant and a thermal power plant.
2. Background Art
For the purpose of increasing the thermal efficiency of a plant, a thermal power plant that employs a steam heat pump using a steam compressor has been proposed. An example of this thermal power plant is described in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 1 (1989)-123001. The proposed thermal power plant supplies sequentially steam generated in a boiler to a high-pressure turbine, a medium-pressure turbine, and a low-pressure turbine and generates power by rotating a generator coupled to the rotational axis of these turbines. The steam discharged from the low-pressure turbine becomes water by being condensed in a condenser. This water is supplied to a boiler as feed water through a feed water pipe. The feed water is heated by four stages of feed water heaters to increase its temperature as it passes through the feed water pipe. The steam extracted from the condenser is compressed by a compressor and a temperature of the stream is increased by the compression. The compressed steam is extracted at a plurality of points in the axial direction of the compressor to be supplied to each of the feed water heaters. The feed water is heated by the compressed steam supplied to each feed water heater. The steam becomes condensate water in each feed water heater and the condensate water is supplied to the feed water. Additionally, since the steam compressor, whose internal enthalpy is increased by adiabatic compression of the steam, becomes an overheated condition, a mist of the condensed water is sprayed inside the compressor to prevent such condition and to save necessary power.
In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5 (1993)-65808 discloses a thermal cogeneration steam turbine plant.
In this thermal cogeneration steam turbine plant, steam generated in a boiler is supplied to a turbine to rotate a generator for power generation, and steam discharged from the turbine is supplied to each of high-pressure and low-pressure processing steam supply facilities. The high-pressure processing steam supply facility is supplied with the steam discharged from the turbine, compressed by a compressor.